Meet six Bicycling readers who shed a total of nearly 650 pounds with the promise of a big payoff, discover their secrets for transforming into fit cyclists, and learn about the intriguing science of incentive-based weight loss.

Jeff Burress gave up drinking, smoking, and junk food to boost his weight loss. (Chis Sembrot)

Jeff Burress
Wilmington, Delaware

REWARD: A bike ride around Lake TahoePOUNDS LOST: 113

Jeff Burress was kicking back on his couch, remote in hand, watching a mountain stage of the Tour de France in 2010, when he witnessed something that would change his life.

“All of a sudden this guy just comes out of nowhere, all by himself, and closes the gap [to the lead group],” Jeff, 33, recalls. The metaphor was not lost on him. “Watching someone be so strong and come from behind really motivated me. I said, ‘I am going to do that.’”

He was hardly in racing shape. Years of grinding out long shifts as a restaurant chef and indulging in late nights of booze and cigarettes had transformed the once-slim hockey player into a flabby guy he barely recognized. A few months earlier, he’d stepped on a friend’s scale and been shocked to find he’d gained nearly 100 pounds over eight years. He had vowed that morning to quit partying and go on a diet. But his motivation just wasn’t there.

Inspired by the fit cyclist on TV, Jeff went to the local bike shop right away and told the owner he wanted a road bike. “He literally laughed at me,” Jeff recalls. “He said, ‘I think you might be too big for a road bike.’ He was just being honest. I shook it off and bought one anyway.”

Instead of parking himself at the bar after hanging up his chef’s whites for the evening, Jeff started slogging out 5-mile rides under the glow of streetlights, clad in basketball shorts and sneakers. His back spokes snapped under his weight more than once. At one point, an angry driver nearly ran him off the road, then threw a soda bottle at him. Undeterred by it all, Jeff started getting up at 5 a.m. so he could do longer rides before work. He could see his body changing. “I’d look in the mirror at these big leg muscles. It was addictive.”

By February 2011, riding 25 miles three times a week, he had gained fitness but still hadn’t lost much weight. A woman he was dating told him about an event coming up that June: America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride—72 miles around Lake Tahoe in California and Nevada, with 4,000 feet of climbing. He made a deal with her: If he could lose 50 pounds, they’d ride it together for his 31st birthday.

He cut out junk food and began eating several small meals a day, rather than three supersized ones. He also started clocking a 70- to 80-mile ride once a week with as much climbing as possible. “I trained hard for that trip,” says Jeff. “After that the weight kept coming off.”

Today Jeff is a trim 172 pounds, and cycling has become a way of life. “This isn’t something I ever thought would happen to me,” he says. “It’s an amazing feeling.”

This past July, he entered his first race—the Liberty Criterium in Malvern, Pennsylvania—and earned ninth place in his Category 5 division. His reward for finally being lean enough to compete? A limited-edition Cervélo S5 Team, just like the ones ridden in the Tour.

Jeff’s Tips
1. “I quit smoking, drinking, and eating junk food cold turkey. That was the only way I could do it. No excuses.”
2. “You cannot work all the time. You have to have a personal life. I started using cycling as a way to get away from all the hours and all the stress.”
3. Stop complaining and go after what you want. “A lot of people like to sit around and wait for things to come to them. It’s up to you to make it happen.”

Despite long hours as a restaurant chef, Burress made time to ride more. (Chris Sembrot)

Trish Page feel in love with the weightless feeling of cycling. (Stephen Wild)

Trish Page
Vancouver, British Columbia

REWARD: A jersey from every gran fondo she ridesPOUNDS LOST: 60

Trish Page remembers her aha moment in vivid detail.

In January 2012, on a trip to Arizona with her teenage son’s hockey team, the group had decided to hike 1.5 miles to the top of 2,700-foot Camelback Mountain. Trish had always been athletic and outdoorsy. It should have been easy. But when shortness of breath stopped her well below the summit, it hit her. “I was one of those moms who could not make it to the top of the mountain,” the 44-year-old pediatric nurse recalls. “I found that really hard to take.”

Back home, she looked at a photo from that day and hardly recognized herself. She stepped on a scale and the truth stung. She had gone from 133 to 188 in just a few years, thanks in part to overnight hospital shifts that made sticking to a healthy diet nearly impossible. “I always thought, I’ve put on a little weight but I’m not that unhealthy,” Trish says. “I was wrong.”

(Courtesy)

A former runner who had long been intrigued by the idea of doing a triathlon, Trish signed up for a training course. But the running hurt her knees and made her feel awkward and unwieldy, and she was bored by the endless laps in the pool. Riding, however, was a revelation. “I could go 20 or 25 kilometers right away and I didn’t feel heavy.”

She bought her first road bike, dropped the triathlon class, and—on her first ride with a friend—dangled a powerful incentive out ahead of herself. Her riding buddy was headed to the RBC GranFondo Banff that August in Alberta with a group from work. “I very jokingly suggested I join them,” she recalls. “They were all fit and healthy. I was neither.” But her friend encouraged her and, on impulse, she signed up.

She began keeping track of her weight loss on MyFitnessPal, and her mileage and pace on Strava. “I wasn’t about to go all the way to Banff and not finish in front of everyone I work with,” Trish says. The more she lost, the faster she got and the easier climbing became—a positive feedback loop that kept her motivated. By the day of the fondo, she had lost 50 pounds, a victory she rewarded with a sleek new jersey from the event, and an entry into another (the RBC GranFondo Whistler) a month later.

To keep herself on track when the cold Canadian winter set in, she put three more fondos on her calendar for 2013—both Banff and Whistler, plus the Campagnolo Gran Fondo New York. “I didn’t want to wake up in April and have all that weight back on,” says Trish. “I told myself that if I kept it off, I’d buy a jersey from each of the rides.”

She lost another 10 pounds over the winter and now has five jerseys in her collection—and counting. And instead of taking an extra large, she now fits into a medium.

Trish’s Tips
1. “I eat my salad first.” That way, by the time you get to the main course you’re already ­filling up. "I also always eat my ­dinner off a smaller plate.” It looks like more food, she says, so it feels more satisfying.
2. “I map out my riding schedule at the beginning of each week, anchoring it around my long ride on the weekend, with smaller rides during the week.”
3. “I put fenders on my bike and bought decent rain gear. I hate the idea of riding indoors.”

John Esguerra had to rest after two miles on his first ride since childhood. (Mathew Scott)

John Esguerra
Northridge, California

REWARD: A series of new bikesPOUNDS LOST: 100

As an average-build kid growing up in Manila, Philippines, John Esguerra would meet his buddies after school to pedal the dirt roads and vast rice fields near his neighborhood. “It was about freedom and the chance to explore new things,” says the 44-year-old IT systems administrator.

But after his family relocated to Los Angeles when he was 17, he traded bike rides for late-night partying and home-cooked meals for Carl’s Jr. And—despite having lost his father at age 46 to lung ­cancer—John began smoking half a pack a day. By his 18th birthday he’d gained 25 pounds. By his 30s, he was pushing 300.

On the eve of his 40th birthday, John awoke with severe heartburn that lingered for weeks, burning his throat with every swallow. “Until that point,” says the father of two, “I thought I was invincible.”

With the help of smoking-­cessation medication, he quit cigarettes. After he went six weeks without lighting up, he took the hundreds of dollars he would have spent on smokes and sprang for a new Diamondback Insight hybrid.

On his first ride—a 5-mile commute to work—he had to pull over at mile 2. “I literally thought I was going to pass out,” he says. “I felt like my chest was being split open.” Yet, as he rode home later that day, he caught a glimmer of something joyful. “I thought, I remember this feeling.” Within a month, he was riding 10 to 15 miles twice a week, sticking to flat terrain. Within six months, he was pedaling as many as 30 miles three times a week with a few hills thrown in. Within a year, he was hammering out 40 to 60 miles up to four times a week. Meanwhile, he swore off soda, replaced his beloved white rice with more nutritious quinoa, and traded unhealthy snacks like Doritos for raw almonds.

By 2010, he’d lost 60 pounds—a milestone he celebrated with a new Marin Alpine Trail 29er mountain bike. By 2011, he’d shaved off another 40 and rewarded himself by buying a superlight carbon road-bike frame on eBay. For keeping the weight off, he hit a Fourth of July sale last year and upgraded from his first mountain bike to a Giant Trance X 29er 2.

After work, he now dons a headlamp, switches on his handlebar lights, and joins a new group of friends for night rides. “Yeah, it can be expensive, especially when you get hooked on it,” he says. “But unlike my previous expensive habits, this is contributing to my life, not my death.”

John’s Tips
1. “I avoid white food. White equals sugar and starch. This makes it easier to choose healthy foods without having to read labels or count ­calories.”
2. “When I first started, I wrote down my daily habits from the moment I woke up until bedtime. It made me realize all the routines I had to break.”
3. Once you’ve reaped your reward, use it as incentive to keep the weight off. “I work hard to prove every bike is worth all the money I paid for it.”

(Mathew Scott)

Anne Farawila could barely climb stairs, now she rides 150-200 miles every week.(Andy Reynolds)

Anne Farawila
Richland, Washington

REWARD: A new Specialized RoubaixPOUNDS LOST: 110

As a scientist with three kids under the age of six, Anne Farawila hardly had time to fret about her size. She’d rise at dawn to pack lunches and shuttle kids to day care, snack her way through a 10-hour workday, tackle dinner, tuck everyone in, and collapse in front of the TV. She had always been heavy, weighing 200 pounds by age 14.

For most of her life, her weight didn’t bother her. “I always thought I could do anything no matter what,” says the 38-year-old. But by her mid-30s, work stress and three pregnancies had pushed her to an unhealthy 265. She couldn’t even play with her kids. When they went roller-skating, the pain in her ankles kept her on the sidelines. Taking them to soccer practice wiped her out. Even a flight of stairs became a struggle, Anne says.

She started logging her food intake using an app called Tap & Track, and was stunned when it revealed that she was eating 4,000 calories a day, twice what she needed. “I always assumed I was fat because of my genes or my hormones,” she says. “I had no idea how much I was eating.”

She began substituting olive oil for butter, skipping her bedtime snack of bread and Brie, emphasizing vegetables and lean meat, and cutting back on carbs—and she dragged her husband’s clunky cruiser to her office at a sprawling research campus and rode it to meetings. To her surprise, simply feeling the wind in her hair was exhilarating, and she started riding more frequently.

So Anne made herself a deal: Once she lost another 30 pounds, she’d treat herself to a new bike. “I’d be climbing a hill thinking, if I had a better bicycle, I’d be a lot faster,” she says. It was a powerful incentive: Six months later, she became the proud owner of a Specialized Roubaix. And today, she is a chiseled 5-foot-9 and 155 pounds. She not only transformed her body, but her priorities as well. “I cut my work hours to 30 a week,” she says. “Late afternoons and Saturday mornings are ‘me time’ to ride.” She typically gets in a combined 150 to 200 miles a week, and finished a century this past summer in which she averaged a strong 19 miles per hour.

The family is also reaping rewards. “We are all so much happier,” she says. “I have the energy to play soccer with them and take them for bike rides. I couldn’t do that before.”

Anne’s Tips
1. “Don’t put work first. Put yourself first.”
2. “Instead of two big plates of pasta with meatballs, I now have a small plate with a couple of meatballs, a little pasta, and a big salad.”
3. “Even when I was on the most strict diet, I still allowed myself one little piece of chocolate a day. You can’t deprive yourself too much.”

Farawila isn't the only one benefiting from her weight loss. She now has more energy to play with her kids. (Andy Reynolds)

Kelly and Donald Sorah signed up for charity rides to build motivation. (Jonathan Robert Willis)

Seventy-five miles into the Bike MS Breakaway to the Beach ride in the Carolinas this past September, Donald Sorah had a surprising thought. It was his first 100-miler, but he felt so strong he wanted to sign up for a second century scheduled for the following day. His only hesitation: Could his wife, Kelly, make it? Her longest-ever ride was 65 miles.

Before he could bring up the idea, she said, “Am I completely crazy to think that we can do the 100 tomorrow?”

A few years earlier, the thought of either of them riding even just a few miles seemed impossible. Donald, 40, a college music professor, had ballooned to 315 pounds. Kelly, now 30 and a school music teacher, weighed 265.

Both had been big since childhood and had tried to lose weight before. When they met, in January 2007, Donald had recently dropped 85 pounds on the low-carb South Beach Diet (on their first date, he took Kelly out for salad) and invited her to try it, too. Six months later, on their wedding day, they’d each slimmed down, but once Kelly got pregnant, they both started eating for two.

At their largest, the Sorahs weighed a combined 580 pounds. (Courtesy)

Put off by the thought of returning to a restrictive diet, Kelly started pedaling around on her old hybrid. When she got bored riding alone, she bought Donald a bike for his birthday in June 2011.

He struggled to stay upright during a test ride in a parking lot. But on an 11-mile trail ride, with Kelly pulling their young son in the trailer behind them, he had an epiphany: “It was the first sport where I could burn calories and enjoy myself at the same time.”

In just a year, Kelly was running races and competing in triathlons, and Donald entered his first race, the 40-mile Guest River Bicycle Rally, in Coeburn, Virginia. “I bonked so hard I had to stop at a convenience store midrace to get a Gatorade,” he says. “But I was ready for the next one.”

He began to dream of a new, lightweight bike with all the latest gadgets. But at 230 pounds, he felt he still hadn’t earned it. “I told myself if I reached 199, I’d go for it,” he says.

In March 2013, Donald got his new bike, a Specialized Roubaix, and by fall he had put more than 3,000 miles on it, slimming down to a svelte 163. Kelly has since gotten a Specialized Ruby to celebrate losing 100 pounds. On those bikes, the duo ultimately completed the 200-mile weekend. “It’s incredible to think that one decision to buy him a bike changed our lives so dramatically,” Kelly says.

The Sorah's Tips
1. “You have to be in it together,” says Donald. “If one person brings home doughnuts, it’s harder for the other one to resist.”
2. Sign up for a charity ride. “It really motivated me because I knew I was doing it for other people,” says Kelly.
3. “Surround yourself with like-minded people—either in person or online,” says Donald. It’s motivating when they comment on your progress or share their own successes, he says.